Wild Neighbors

[Chip]

Yesterday, two velvet bucks and a doe were feeding in our meadow by the river. The place to the north has been scalped by year-round horse grazing and the surrounding public land is severely cowburnt. So our patch of native veg has become a wildlife refuge. A doe birthed twin fawns in the dense cover by the river. Now that the ephemeral streams on the mountain are dry, the deer will be crossing our place to drink at the river. I love seeing them.

https://i.imgur.com/wUZUKw3.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/jtK2Erd.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/iUj6aWG.jpg

[Chrissy]

Wow! It must be great to see them that close you can get such good photos like those. :)

[Chip]

Wow! It must be great to see them that close you can get such good photos like those. :)

Taken from about 120 yards off. If I approached them, they'd spook and dash off. My camera has a long (10X) telephoto lens, which is why the photos are a bit grainy. Here's one of a fox, nearer the house.

https://i.imgur.com/ts2oZ4v.jpg

There's a predator call, sort of a dying rabbit squeal, that makes them stand still just long enough for a picture.

[Lloyd]

Do you have tick issues the way we do in New England?

[Chip]

Do you have tick issues the way we do in New England?

We have ticks, of a different sort. They're larger than yours and don't carry Lyme disease, but only Rocky Mountain spotted fever. My father caught it, long ago, while flyfishing on the river that runs through our present place. I've pulled off quite a few wood ticks, but never been ill from their bites.

[Chrissy]

Because I had the baby hedgehogs and found a tiny tick on one of them I bought a pack of 3 different sized tick removers from Amazon, just in case. Yesterday I had to remove 5 ticks from the hoglets and the tick removers made it easier than getting the first tiny one out of the edge of the ear.
Not sure if it's the leafy bedding in the sleeping box or if they were already infected before I got them. :(

[RobJohnson]

Because I had the baby hedgehogs and found a tiny tick on one of them I bought a pack of 3 different sized tick removers from Amazon, just in case. Yesterday I had to remove 5 ticks from the hoglets and the tick removers made it easier than getting the first tiny one out of the edge of the ear.
Not sure if it's the leafy bedding in the sleeping box or if they were already infected before I got them. :(

Have a look at littlesilverhedgehog.com

Or google baby hedgehogs with ticks

Not easy to look at the pics though

[Chrissy]

As a tick update my neighbours' son came to my door today (Friday) and said there was a hedgehog on their back lawn that was completely covered in ticks and asked what could be done. I went up there with my tick removers and must have removed over 50 ticks from the poor thing. Then we fed him and gave him a drink of water. Hopefully he will fully recover. The number of ticks I had to remove and squash actually made both of us feel really nauseous. It was horrible. Poor little thing, I'm sure he's better without that load.

I know "littlesilverhedgehog." If I had taken pics they would have been much worse than any of those online. :(

Update: This little guy was eventually picked up without him balling up and another 30 or so ticks were removed from his underbelly. He has had to go to the vet for some treatment. He wasn't that interested in eating or drinking and lost 30grams weight by Sunday morning so he must have an underlying problem or be really dehydrated. I hope they can help him and he can come back to be released where he came from. Fingers crossed. :)

Update: Sadly the vet reported the little guy had a breathing problem so he's gone to hog heaven. :cry:

[Chip]

Some critter was cutting kale leaves in the garden and stacking them in neat piles, which made me suspect a pack rat (aka bushy-tailed wood rat).

Caught and released a chipmunk– eating mostly seeds, they don't cause any damage. This morning I checked the trap and there was a young pack rat.

https://i.imgur.com/MYO4O6m.jpg

Incredibly cute, but they can wreck a garden and do heaps of damage in a garage or house. So I relocated it to a nice shady creek some distance off.

[Chip]

On successive nights, I caught an adult male and an adult female. Relocated both to spots with shade and water.

Set the trap this evening. Wonder if I'll get more offspring.

[Lloyd]

On successive nights, I caught an adult male and an adult female. Relocated both to spots with shade and water.

Set the trap this evening. Wonder if I'll get more offspring.
An adult male and adult female... what? Human? 🤯

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[Chip]

Scroll back for once, before you attempt a joke.

[Lloyd]

Scroll back for once, before you attempt a joke.
Being that this thread discusses at least three species (pack rat, chipmunk, hedgehog), perhaps you should read the full thread and realize that your post's subject wasn't clear. Besides, what's wrong with a bit of light humor? Must all humor include a bitter edge?

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[Wile E Coyote]

Scroll back for once, before you attempt a joke.

Lighten up Francis.

[Chip]

Not clear? I posted a photo.

Stop trying to be clever, you schmuck.

[Lloyd]

Not clear? I posted a photo.

Stop trying to be clever, you schmuck.
Dude, chill out. This isn't the vitriol subforum. You mentioned packrats, you mentioned chipmunks, the thread was based on hedgehogs. So, since I found it unclear, I made a mild joke. Step outside and do some breathing exercises.

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[Chip]

You do the same schtick on other threads.

Enough with the lame jokes. Please.

[RobJohnson]

Come on guys, just a thread about nature, we are all in agreement on the message.

[Chip]

Come on guys, just a thread about nature, we are all in agreement on the message.

I started the thread. Remember?

[Lloyd]

Come on guys, just a thread about nature, we are all in agreement on the message.

I started the thread. Remember?
Which leads to more ambiguity in the post that I made light of. This thread references at least four species (bucks, fox, pack rat, chipmunk) that appear on your property. Are you upset that I made a "dad joke" or that someone felt that you weren't clear in your post despite you being a professional writer? Either way, your hostile tone, especially being that this isn't the Let's Berate Each Other sub-forum, is a bit over the top.

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[dneal]

FFS, the thread is titled "wild neighbors".

Cool pics, Chip. Our white tail will be starting growing their racks soon. We have 5 (2 doe, 3 fawns and one buck) that are regulars to the back yard. Coming in or out of the screen door to the porch rarely gets an ear twitch from them now.

[Lloyd]

Even here, the suburbs just 30 miles north of Boston, we have a lot of deer families strolling on our property. Encroachment.....

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[Chip]

They are encroaching your "property?"

Or is your suburban property encroaching on their habitat?

[Lloyd]

Our and the nearby towns have encroached on their habitat.

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[Robalone]

Hey folks… where I live there’s heaps of kangaroos. They hang out pretty close to city and suburbs. They are so common that I haven’t got any pics cos they are so taken for granted that if you want to see them, you usually only have to go a short distance from wherever you are to a place where they come out to feed….. often like parks and cleared areas.
Unfortunately they also get hit on roads quite a lot , and it’s not uncommon at all to see them dead on the road side.

[Chip]

Never actually seen one.

When we anchored in Mansion House Bay, Kawau Island, NZ, there were wallabies cropping grass near the former governor-general's house.

https://i.imgur.com/xs9OZpQ.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/CIabFsd.jpg

It's quite a swim to the mainland and they haven't escaped and become a pest, like the possums.

[Chip]

There was a black bear cub in our yard yesterday.

It was sniffing around under a lilac bush where I pour waste rinse water from pans. At first I thought it was a dog.

After a look around for the mama, I shooed it away, down the slope toward the river. It was pretty timid.

I wonder if a deer hunter didn't kill its mother, poor thing.

[Chrissy]

Wow Chip. I'm not surprised you had a look around for the mama bear. I hear they can get quite protective when they have cubs around. I'm assuming they can be hunted in your State? I hope that the cub will survive. I've rescued 3 hedgehogs this year and have brought all of them to the stage where they can be released but I certainly wouldn't take on an orphan bear cub. Crikey. Imagine that in a back garden :faint:

[Chip]

It was the size of a hefty lab, plus a thick coat of fur. Looked healthy. I'd guess it was last winter's cub and this will be its first hibernation.

It's illegal here to adopt wild animals, especially predators. If it had seemed ill, I'd have tried to trap it in a shed and called the Game & Fish Dept. They have shelters and a relocation program.

[Chip]

Cat v fox: what made Downing Street’s Larry so brave?

The chief mouser was seen on camera chasing away a larger intruder on his patch. Experts explain his behaviour


https://youtu.be/YAqd_kecrJI

Hannah Devlin Science correspondent
Thu 13 Oct 2022 09.54 EDT

Larry, the Downing Street cat, stepped up from mouser duties this week to chase an urban fox off his patch. The burly tabby was caught on camera intently stalking the fox before launching into a fully fledged pursuit when the trespasser tried to take cover in a flowerbed.

Larry emerges the victor, but the encounter has led some to wonder what gives cats the brazen confidence to take on larger animals such as foxes or dogs.

Experts say cat behaviour is strongly shaped by instincts that date back to their wild ancestors. Domestic cats are far more similar, genetically and in behaviour, to wild relatives than dogs are to wolves. As solitary hunters, establishing and maintaining control of territory in which to hunt and mate is central to the cat lifestyle. “Cats will confront most other animals if threatened, even dogs,” said Nicky Trevorrow, a behaviour manager at the charity Cats Protection. “This is because they’re naturally territorial – it’s an ingrained instinct – so will often challenge any other animals on their territory.”

Cats typically have favoured areas to sleep and eat and mark out their “home range” by spraying, rubbing their facial scent markers on objects and scratching around the area to warn off other cats. Cats patrol their territory along a network of paths, often on a regular schedule, allowing neighbouring cats to avoid encounters that could result in a standoff. A cat’s sex (unneutered males tend to be more confrontational), life experience and disposition play a role in how it will react to any encroachment on their territory.

“There is a lot of individual variation in how strongly they will react to perceived intruders, and whether they will take on animals, such as foxes, that are larger than themselves,” said Prof James Serpell, an animal welfare expert at the University of Pennsylvania. “If a cat’s first encounter with a fox causes that fox to run away, it will likely embolden the cat in any subsequent encounters with foxes.”

Foxes may be bigger with more powerful jaws, but evidence suggests other cats often prove more formidable adversaries. A 2013 analysis of VetCompass, a clinical database of vet visits, identified five confirmed and nine suspected fox fight injuries for each 10,000 vet visits by cats (there was no data to indicate how foxes fared in these scuffles). This compared with 541 in 10,000 for cats presented with cat bite injuries and 196 in 10,000 cats being presented after a road traffic accident.

“So to put fox attacks into context, other cats (40 times greater risk) and cars (14 times) appear to present much greater dangers to cats than foxes,” concluded Pete Wedderburn, a vet and broadcaster, who carried out the fox risk assessment.

“Cats and foxes usually pose no threat to one another and it’s unusual for any harm to be caused to either of them when in close proximity,” said Trevorrow. There may be some instinctive animosity between cats and foxes, as there is between cats and dogs, due to the species once competing for food. “Ancestrally, foxes competed directly with wildcats for food such as rodents and birds, and adult foxes probably posed a predation threat to young wildcats and kittens,” said Serpell.

Dennis Turner, the director of the Institute for Applied Ethology and Animal Psychology near Zurich, said: “Larry obviously feels at home at No 10 and is a large male. Although males, even intact ones, are usually more tolerant of other males – they have other things on their minds – they can still chase intruders away from their core areas of activity. Those include cats unknown to them, dogs and even foxes as in this case. Obviously this fox was one of the urban foxes living in and around London – but I bet it won’t come back for a while after this.”

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...e_iOSApp_Other

[Chip]

Copied from another thread:

Bear goes selfie-crazy by snapping 400 pictures on Colorado wildlife camera

A motion-activated camera near Boulder contained a surprise for officials monitoring wildlife activity

Guardian staff
Sun 29 Jan 2023

When a curious bear stumbled upon a wildlife motion-activated camera near Boulder, Colorado, she ended up triggering hundreds of “selfies”, officials have said.

Coyotes, beavers, mountain lions, black bears, all kinds of birds and many other creatures inhabit the landscape outside town, and Boulder’s open space and mountain parks department – which states its function as preserving and protecting the natural environment and land resources – set out to monitor them. But they were amazed when they checked one camera out of many they have placed across thousands of acres and found that out of 580 images on it about 400 were of one bear, NBC News reported.

https://i.imgur.com/OL9KKkz.jpg

Most animals don’t notice the cameras, but officials said the bear appeared enthralled by this one.

https://i.imgur.com/1C9dRcq.jpg

“In this instance, a bear took a special interest in one of our wildlife cameras and took the opportunity to capture hundreds of ‘selfies’,” an open space and mountain parks spokesperson, Phillip Yates, told NBC in a statement this week.

“These pictures made us laugh, and we thought others would, too,” Yates added.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...e_iOSApp_Other

[Scrawler]

I am lucky to get wild visitors in my garden too. This was taken a couple days ago. They come very close to the house but are very skittish and run at the slightest movement.
75953

[Chip]

Nice. Whitetails? There are a few here, along the rivers. There's a large mule deer herd that winters in and around our place.

https://i.imgur.com/2lM2f4L.jpg

[Scrawler]

Yes whitetails. When you have these you know where the phrase "high tailed it out of there" came from, because that is all you usually see. We have 9 does and fawns and one 6 point buck living around here. The does are here every day. I think they heard I was putting grain out for the turkeys and started coming round. We had 24 of these coming round last year but I have only seen 4 toms so far this year. This really is one of the advantages of living is a rural setting.

75982

[Lloyd]

Yes whitetails. When you have these you know where the phrase "high tailed it out of there" came from, because that is all you usually see. We have 9 does and fawns and one 6 point buck living around here. The does are here every day. I think they heard I was putting grain out for the turkeys and started coming round. We had 24 of these coming round last year but I have only seen 4 toms so far this year. This really is one of the advantages of living is a rural setting.

75982
Unfortunately, these (turkeys and deer) come to my suburban community due to encroachment.

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[Chip]

We see deer, elk, moose, pronghorn antelope, black bear, cougar, coyote, fox, badger, beaver, mink, otter (rarely), bald eagle, golden eagle, osprey, various hawks and falcons, ravens, and various other species. Deb spotted some wolves about ten years ago.

We lived in New Zealand for a year and had a chance to move there, but we missed our wild neighbors. Good reason for coming home.

[Scrawler]

We see deer, elk, moose, pronghorn antelope, black bear, cougar, coyote, fox, badger, beaver, mink, otter (rarely), bald eagle, golden eagle, osprey, various hawks and falcons, ravens, and various other species. Deb spotted some wolves about ten years ago.

We lived in New Zealand for a year and had a chance to move there, but we missed our wild neighbors. Good reason for coming home.

Nice. I live in a clearing in the boreal forest of Eastern Ontario and see many animals and birds. No elk and probably no eagles. I had a cat that would stand on the footpath and tell larger animals like black bears and deer to go away. Some time ago the authorities released a large mink like animal called a fisher to control the porcupines, but they ended up eating the cats. The biggest birds we see are blue herons. They have been putting up nesting platforms on telegraph poles for the osprey. You must have owls. When I was building the extension to my house a barn owl nested in my rafters. I have been out on winter walks and have seen full body owl imprints in the snow where they swoop down and pick up prey.

I am very lucky to be able to live in this place and experience it as I do.

[Chip]

Surprise!!!

https://i.imgur.com/puQwFMI.jpg

[Chip]

With thunderheads on the horizon, I was doing household chores with the screen door open and a jazz album on the stereo: Time Out by the Brubeck Quartet.

A favorite piece, Strange Meadowlark, was playing. I heard the usual buzz of hummingbirds and then a single call, intricate and melodic. I peeked out but couldn't spot the bird, except as a gray-green shape hidden in the cottonwood leaves. We've got Bullock's Orioles and a Western Tanagers around, but I've not heard them sing. A warbler, perhaps? It kept singing, almost as if it was taking a solo in the jazz tune.


https://youtu.be/7sgNYrz0b4o?t=4

When the tune ended, it sang awhile, then flew away.

[Sailor Kenshin]

With thunderheads on the horizon, I was doing household chores with the screen door open and a jazz album on the stereo: Time Out by the Brubeck Quartet.

A favorite piece, Strange Meadowlark, was playing. I heard the usual buzz of hummingbirds and then a single call, intricate and melodic. I peeked out but couldn't spot the bird, except as a gray-green shape hidden in the cottonwood leaves. We've got Bullock's Orioles and a Western Tanagers around, but I've not heard them sing. A warbler, perhaps? It kept singing, almost as if it was taking a solo in the jazz tune.


https://youtu.be/7sgNYrz0b4o?t=4

When the tune ended, it sang awhile, then flew away.

Love that album.

Yesterday, an adolescent robin was following its parent all around the yard, nagging for food. Next it'll be asking for the car keys. 😜

Also, first chipmunk sighting of the season. At least that's what I hope it was.

[Chip]

We have a herd of least chipmunks that look for the sunflower seeds spilled by the birds at the feeder. We've also had some golden-mantled ground squirrels (that nest under the hoods of autos and chew the wires) with some Richardson's ground squirrels (like a smaller, thinner prairie dog) in the shortgrass openings.

[Scrawler]

When I went out to dispose of coffee grounds this morning I saw that a juvenile groundhog has moved into the garden.

[Chip]

I've had a few pocket gophers. Also packrats, that clip off stems and leave them in neat stacks.

[Chip]

Yesterday there was a spectacular moth, Cecropia, the largest North American species, perched on the greenhouse.

https://i.imgur.com/17DnePj.jpg

Last year there was another in almost the same spot. It's too cold for their larval stage here, so it must be migrating.

[Chip]

We put orange halves in empty cans to draw Bullock's orioles—

https://i.imgur.com/dJNGvvw.jpg

They also draw Western Tanagers–

https://i.imgur.com/Km5fPJC.jpg

Here's a face-off–

https://i.imgur.com/8YCHxAv.jpg

[Chrissy]

Thank you Chip. What beautiful birds. :) :hail:

[forester]

Chip:

Thanks for sharing.

[joolstacho]

78595
Wally Wallaby - pretty cheeky frequent visitor.

[Chip]

Not all critters are welcome. I just dismantled a huge nest of packrats that colonized a woodpile under our deck.

What a filthy mess they make. They also got into my sailboat, under the cover. Ugh!

I live-trapped one and transported it. Hoping to get the rest.

[Chip]

While I was having breakfast, a red fox trotted west across our place with a rabbit in its jaws, headed for the river.

Too quick to get a photo. Wonder if it has a den and kits nearby.